r, concerned about this country's
growing mastery of nuclear fission? Was it his duty to notify the FBI of
his findings and let them take over from here?

He shook his head. Too early for anything like that. He needed more
evidence--evidence not to be explained away as coincidence.

Once more Lieutenant Martin Kirk went back to analyzing the broken
phrases Cordell had picked up while eavesdropping that October
afternoon. _Twelve times zero_ made no sense at all ... unless it could
be the combination of a safe...? Hardly possible; no combination he'd
ever heard of would read that way. The next one, then ... _chained to
two hundred thousand years_.... Another blank; could mean anything or
nothing. Next: _A: ... sounded like the Professor said something like
his colleges had no idea and he'd see they were warned right away._

Kirk bit thoughtfully down on a corner of his lip. Gilmore didn't own
any colleges and how do you go about warning one? Maybe the word was
_college_, meaning the one where he had his laboratory. But actually it
wasn't a college at all; it was a university. Not much difference to the
man in the street, but to the Professor.... Wait a minute! Not
_colleges_! _Colleagues!_ It was his colleagues Gilmore had promised to
warn. And the word meant men and women in the same line of work as the
Professor--nuclear physics. Things, Kirk told himself with elation, were
looking up!

The business about "three in the past five months" was next, but he felt
sure of what that had meant. But the last of the quotations went nowhere
at all.

"Something about _taking in washing_--" Under less tragic circumstances,
a nonsense line. But Cordell hadn't actually heard the words clearly
enough to quote them with authority. That could mean he had heard words
that sounded _like_ "taking in washing."

Taking, baking, making, slaking, raking--the list seemed endless.
"Washing" could have been the first two syllables of Washington--and
Washington would be the place where the Atomic Energy Commission hung
out.

Still too hazy. He leaned back and put his feet up and attacked the
three mysterious words from every conceivable angle. No dice.

* * * * *

Sight of the ambling figure of Patrolman Chenowich passing the office
door caught his eye, reminding him that two heads were often better than
one. "Hey, Frank."

Chenowich came in. "Yeah, Lieutenant. Somethin' doin'?"

"I'm trying to figure o